Ape? Bear? Bigfoot? Sightings pose mystery

By Kurt Van der DussenHoosierTimes.com

Residents nervous after spotting creature in forest area south of Lake Monroe

HARDIN RIDGE — First a piranha, then a python, then a monitor lizard and now an ape?

Indiana Fish and Wildlife Division officials and an Indiana University anthropologist aren't ruling out the possibility that the creature folks have spotted along Chapel Hill Road in remote, rugged Polk Township could be some sort of ape.

The most recent sighting occurred at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at the house of Rick Deckard and his sister, Sue Taylor, on Chapel Hill Road west of the entrance to the Hardin Ridge Recreation Area, south of Lake Monroe in Hoosier National Forest.

Two friends, Dale Moore and Penny Howell, had just driven up when they spotted the animal about 200 feet away at the back of the cleared property.

They described it as standing in a sort of crouch on its rear legs, long front legs hanging down in front of it. They said it was covered in very long, nearly black hair, and guessed its height at around 5 feet and its weight at 200 pounds or more.

They said when the creature saw them, it turned and moved away, down the slope into the woods. Howell said she saw a patch of white fur atop its head and down its neck.

It left tracks in the damp clay — tracks still visible Thursday afternoon.

The tracks were about 4-by-5 inches, with four toe impressions and a heel mark. As it was four-toed rather than five-toed, they ruled out a bear.

The prints were similar to cougar tracks, but for one feature. Many of the toeprints were tipped by deep punctures in the clay, apparently from long claws. In one print, three claws had cut deep incisions 1 1/2 inches long.

At the Bloomington Fish and Wildlife Division office, wildlife biologists Mitchell and Gary Langell studied a sketch of the footprint. Given the print and the description of the animal Mitchell got Wednesday from Deckard by phone an hour after the sighting, the two were not ruling out an escaped exotic animal.

Mitchell said he told Deckard that sometimes people see things and "misidentify" what they see — an idea Deckard had related and contemptuously dismissed earlier at his house.

"I'm a bow hunter," said the 49-year-old lifelong resident of the Chapel Hill area. "I know a bear when I see one. I know a panther when I see one. This isn't a bear or a panther.

"We've got a panther back there, too, but this is not a panther. It walks on its rear legs," he said.

Mitchell was more inclined to believe the animal runs on all fours, which was what he said he was first told Wednesday.

But he and Langell said the idea that some exotic animal had escaped its owner was quite possible. And they said an escaped ape of some sort might be the best explanation.

Mitchell referred the case to IU anthropologist Dick Adams, who planned to go to the site today to see the prints. He also agreed an ape was a strong possibility.

"It very well could be; this sounds very much like an orang," he said, referring to an orangutan, the large, shaggy-haired ape that is native to Borneo and Sumatra and that some people keep as an exotic pet.

But the black hair of the Chapel Hill Road animal wouldn't match the reddish-brown hair of an orangutan, he said.

Dodge disputed the ape theory. "This doesn't sound like an ape to me," he said. "The only ape I know of that would weigh 200 pounds is a gorilla."

But he admitted an escaped exotic animal could be running loose.

Last year alone, a species of piranha was caught in Griffy Lake, a 12-foot python that had escaped its Bloomington owner was recovered crawling around Yellowwood State Forest, and a monitor lizard native to the South Pacific was spotted and chased for several hours at Lake Lemon.

"I've taken all kinds of animals out in this county," Dodge said. "I've taken bears, cougars, lions," — all escaped from owners.

"We'll go down there and take a look and see what we come up with," he said. "I don't know what it is."

Bibliographical Information:

Reporter Kurt Van der Dussen can be reached at 331-4372 or by e-mail at kvd@heraldt.com.